How many candidates usually reach the onsite stage of interviews with big companies?

Posted by deleted_by_reddit@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 6 comments

I have been interesting in this question a lot lately from 2 point of views:

1) What are the odds of getting an offer after that stage if you did well (or if you didn't do well enough, what do they usually do, wait for other interviewers?)

2) How many resources a big company invests into filling a position.

Those of you that are experienced in the recruiting process in big companies would you help me please?

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spoonraker@reddit

I work for one of those companies. What you need to know is that big company interviews are brutal, and the mentality of the company is that accepting false negatives is better than accepting false positives. In other words, if there's any doubt about giving a candidate an offer and there's no data to support going one way or the other, the default is to reject the candidate and not give an offer. Offers only come when the interviewing committee has a clear data-driven signal that you're worth extending an offer to.

Big companies have plenty of resources to accept rejecting candidates that might be qualified but they don't have data to support extending an offer. They're typically hiring many people all the time, rather than occasionally hiring one person for a specific role. This is why the hiring process is quite standardized across the company. Basically what I'm saying is that a big company being desperate to fill a specific role is extremely rare, and even if it happens, they'll still default to waiting longer rather than hiring someone they're not sure of.

Getting to the onsite interview means nothing other than you haven't been rejected yet. There's no guarantee of an offer by making it that far. Far from it; a lot of people will get rejected after an onsite even though getting to the onsite in the first place is challenging.

I say this because I don't want you to have a false sense of security and fail to prepare for the onsite. Don't do this. Prepare for the onsite harder than you prepared for the phone and tech screen. Getting to the onsite is difficult and reaching that point is an accomplishment of sorts in its own right, but you should be prepared for an ever bigger challenge rather than celebrating making it that far because you're not done yet.

OK so that said, the fact that making it to an onsite is challenging in its own right does tell you something: if you can routinely get to an onsite but you aren't getting offers, that means you don't need any dramatic changes in your approach, you just need refinement. Onsite interviews are about getting more data about your technical competency and getting more data about your behavioral characteristics. Many people forget about the behavioral part and assume they're not getting offers because of technical skills. Typically its the opposite. If you're consistently getting onsite interviews and failing, you probably have good tech skills because you keep getting to the onsite. So use this signal to inform your approach that you should refine your behavioral question skills. Or possibly look at different ways that you might be lacking in technical competency other than just being able to solve the problems: is your code clean and easy to read, are you asking clarifying questions, are you identifying edge cases, are you avoiding minor syntax errors and writing correct code the first time? Things like that are what I mean by refine rather than changing direction.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit (OP)

Thank you for the in-depth answer, much appreaciated.

My question though was not about me and my skills (I have never been 100% ready on the technical level for the positions I have applied to) but about how they operate like for instance:

Uusually how many people reach the onsite on a similar timeframe (2-3 weeks?)
What does it mean when they take many days to give you an answer.
if they have specific openings, how long are they willing to wait beofre filling it on average? I have seen openings for 3 months at least.

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spoonraker@reddit

There's no real answer to any of these questions because every hiring situation is different, every candidate is different, and every company is different. Things are standardized quite a bit, but that doesn't mean there isn't still tons of room for different outcomes, because there is.

How long does it typically take to reach the onsite? I can only say this: most likely the company isn't going to be the reason it gets delayed. Most big companies have procedures that say candidates must receive feedback very quickly after a phone screen or tech screen, and within a week after an onsite. So it all comes down to logistics. You can usually move as fast as you want, which means if you have unlimited availability you might reach the onsite within 2 weeks. The timeline basically always come down to availability to schedule. If you want to intentionally move slow, you can drag it out for more than a month and nobody will likely bat an eye.

It doesn't mean anything if they take days to give you an answer. Depending on which round it is, they might have a policy of taking up to a week. Typically this is after the onsite. After a tech or phone screen they typically try to reach out within a day, but delays happen. One thing you can do to help clear up ambiguity is simply ask what the next steps are before your interview ends. Ask specifically for timelines.

How long will they stay open? This is the hardest one to answer with any actual detail. They stay open as long as they need to stay open. Like I said, big companies are typically willing to wait longer more than they're willing to risk a bad hire. So if they're not getting the candidate they want, it stays open. Simple as that. If the first candidate ends up being perfect, it might close immediately. That said, big companies always are hiring for multiple roles, so this doesn't mean you just get rejected. There's always a process for referring a candidate internally to another role. Be sure to ask your recruiter specifically about this if something like this happens to you. Don't read too much into job postings though because these are rarely in perfect sync. I got all the way to an onsite before I even technically applied for the job, and I've seen jobs close publicly out from under people who still move on.

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